Mapillary

Mapillary co-founders were Jan Erik Solem, Johan Gyllenspetz, Peter Neubauer and Yubin Kuang.{{cite web |last1=Guzel |first1=Baris |title=Maps, the crucial piece of autonomous puzzle, and our investment in Mapillary |url=https://medium.com/@BarisGSF/maps-the-crucial-piece-of-autonomous-puzzle-and-our-investment-in-mapillary-7a334f46492c |website=Medium |access-date=22 July 2018 |date=12 April 2018}}{{primary source inline|date=October 2022}} According to Solem, Mapillary was founded to allow crowdsourcing of street-level imagery for use with computer vision.{{Cite web|date=2019-10-18|title=Mapillary CEO and founder Solem: "It never really felt daunting…it just made sense"|url=https://www.redherring.com/europe/mapillary-ceo-and-founder-solem-it-never-really-felt-dauntingit-just-made-sense/|access-date=2021-02-01|website=Red Herring|language=en-US}}

The project started in September 2013,{{cite web | url= http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/12/11/jan-erik-solem-launches-mapilary-putting-images-on-the-map | title= Jan Erik Solem Launches Mapilary - Putting Images on the Map | work= Arctic Capital | date= December 11, 2013 | author= Kristina // Øresund Startups | access-date= 18 January 2015 | url-status= dead| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150402134343/http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/12/11/jan-erik-solem-launches-mapilary-putting-images-on-the-map | archive-date= 2 April 2015 }} with an iPhone app released in November 2013, followed by an Android app released in January 2014.{{cite news | url=http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525216/putting-crowdsourcing-on-the-map/ | title=Putting Crowdsourcing on the Map | work=MIT Technology Review | date=February 28, 2014 | access-date=22 October 2014 | author=Metz, Rachel | archive-date=22 October 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022031253/http://www.technologyreview.com/news/525216/putting-crowdsourcing-on-the-map/ | url-status=dead }}

Mapillary received $1.5 million in seed capital funding from a group of investors, led by Sequoia Capital in January 2015.{{cite news | url=https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/15/sequoia-invests-in-mapillary-to-crowd-map-the-world-faster-than-street-view/ | title=Sequoia Invests In Mapillary To Crowd-Map The World Faster Than Street View|work=TechCrunch| date=January 15, 2015|access-date=18 January 2015|author=Mike Butcher}} In March 2016, it raised $8M additional funding (Atomico, Sequoia, LDV Capital, and PlayFair) for expanded operations, including more computer vision talent and a San Francisco office.{{cite web |last1=Oates |first1=Skift |title=What Destinations Do When Google Maps Lets Them Down |url=https://skift.com/2016/11/08/what-destinations-do-when-google-maps-lets-them-down/ |website=Skift |access-date=18 August 2018 |date=8 November 2016}}{{cite web |last1=Lunden |first1=Ingrid |title=Mapillary raises $8M to take on Google's Street View with crowdsourced photos |url=https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/03/mapillary-raises-8m-to-take-on-googles-street-view-with-crowsourced-photos/ |website=TechCrunch |date=3 March 2016 |access-date=18 August 2018}} In spring 2018, the company received $15M investment led by BMW i Ventures for a total estimated funding of $25M.{{cite web|title=A Swedish professor's computer vision startup just raised a $15 million series B led by BMW i Ventures|url=https://nordic.businessinsider.com/a-cutting-edge-malmo-startup-that-hopes-to-make-a-killing-on-the-self-driving-car-boom-just-raised-a-$15m-series-b-round-led-by-bmw-i-ventures--/|website=nordic.businessinsider.com|access-date=28 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180529054351/https://nordic.businessinsider.com/a-cutting-edge-malmo-startup-that-hopes-to-make-a-killing-on-the-self-driving-car-boom-just-raised-a-$15m-series-b-round-led-by-bmw-i-ventures--/|archive-date=29 May 2018|url-status=dead}}

In September 2018, Mapillary announced a "collaboration" with Amazon to use the Rekognition{{Cite web|url=https://docs.aws.amazon.com/rekognition/latest/dg/what-is.html|title=What Is Amazon Rekognition? - Amazon Rekognition|website=docs.aws.amazon.com|access-date=2018-09-18}} visual data analysis platform to extract text from Mapillary's huge database of 350 million images. As large cities struggle to manage current street sign inventories, the first major project is identifying parking signs and extracting sign text for one large U.S. city, which will use the data to build a parking app to help save drivers time when searching for parking.{{Cite news|url=https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/13/mapillary-rekognition-amazon/|title=Google Street View rival Mapillary collaborates with Amazon to read text in its 350M image database|last=Lunden|first=Ingrid|date=2018-09-13|work=TechCrunch|access-date=2018-09-18|language=en-US}}{{Cite news|url=https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/13/mapillary-strikes-computer-vision-partnership-with-amazon-rekognition-to-ease-urban-parking-crunch/|title=Mapillary will use Amazon Rekognition in effort to ease urban parking crunch|last=O'Brien|first=Chris|date=2018-09-13|work=VentureBeat|access-date=2018-09-18|language=en-US}} In October 2018, the company made CNBC's annual list of top 100 start-ups to watch.{{Cite news|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/09/cnbc-unveils-its-list-of-100-promising-startups-to-watch-in-2018.html|title=CNBC unveils its annual list of 100 promising start-ups to watch|last=staff|first=CNBC.com|date=2018-10-09|work=CNBC|access-date=2018-10-11}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/3-geospatial-companies-cnbc-upstart-100-list/|title=3 geospatial companies in the CNBC Upstart 100 list|date=2018-10-10|work=Geospatial World|access-date=2018-10-11|language=en-US}} In November 2018, Mapillary released a software development kit (SDK) allowing interested third-party software developers to integrate Mapillary image-capture functionality in their apps, opening the way for additional input channels.{{Cite news|url=https://www.programmableweb.com/news/mapillary-open-sources-street-level-image-sdk/brief/2018/11/08|title=Mapillary Open Sources Street-Level Image SDK|last=Carter|first=Eric|date=2018-11-08|work=ProgrammableWeb|access-date=2018-11-15|language=en}}

In June 2020, Facebook acquired Mapillary for an undisclosed amount.{{cite news|access-date=2020-06-19|title=Facebook acquires crowdsourced mapping company Mapillary|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-deals-mapillary-idUSKBN23P3N6|newspaper=Reuters|date=2020-06-18}}{{Cite web |last=O'Hear |first=Steve |date=18 June 2020 |title=Mapillary, the crowdsourced database of street-level imagery, has been acquired by Facebook |url=https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/mapillary-facebook/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200619090502/https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/18/mapillary-facebook/ |archive-date=2020-06-19 |access-date=2020-09-15 |website=TechCrunch |language=en}} After the acquisition, commercial use of Mapillary was made available free of charge.{{Cite web|date=2020-06-18|title=Mapillary Joins Facebook on the Journey of Improving Maps Everywhere|url=https://blog.mapillary.com/news/2020/06/18/Mapillary-joins-Facebook.html|access-date=2021-02-01|website=The Mapillary Blog|language=en}} Due to Mapillary being widely used for contributing to OpenStreetMap and fears that Facebook might shut the service down,{{Cite web|url=https://t.me/OpenStreetMapOrg/55636|title=the only risk at this moment (apart from privacy concerns) is that Mapillary some day will not let us access the photos anymore|date=19 June 2020}} a tool was subsequently created for synchronizing data between Mapillary and KartaView{{Cite web |last=SviMik |date=10 July 2020 |title=Mapillary ⇄ OpenStreetCam synchronization tool |url=https://forum.mapillary.com/t/mapillary-openstreetcam-synchronization-tool/4246 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201116023538/https://forum.mapillary.com/t/mapillary-openstreetcam-synchronization-tool/4246 |archive-date=2020-11-16 |access-date=2020-12-13 |website=Mapillary}} (formerly OpenStreetCam). By November 14, over 55TiB or 30 million images had been transferred to KartaView.{{Cite web |last=SviMik |date=2020-11-14 |title=30549545 images, 55TB total were uploaded to OpenStreetCam |url=https://t.me/OpenStreetMapOrg/66173 |access-date=2020-12-13 |website=Telegram}}

In August 2020, Mapillary announced that more cameras will be available for contributors, making possible streetside coverage of more places that Mapillary might not visit.

Mapillary offers different capturing modes including walking, riding (either a bike or car), or panorama. On 10 September 2014, Mapillary announced that they now support panoramas and spherical photos.{{cite web|last1=Solem|first1=Jan Erik|title=Now Supporting Panoramas and Photo Spheres|url=http://blog.mapillary.com/update/2014/09/10/support-for-pano.html|access-date=25 September 2014|date=10 September 2014}}

As of May 2014, Mapillary had around 0.5 million photos{{cite web|url=https://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-05/09/mapillary|publisher=Wired|date=9 May 2014|title=Mapillary is the crowdsourced answer to Street View|author=Katie Collins|access-date=4 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305015808/http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-05/09/mapillary|archive-date=5 March 2016|url-status=dead}} and by December 2014, it had over 5.5 million.{{cite web |date=2014-11-21 |title=Mapillary on Twitter: "5 million connected geotagged photos! Power of the awesome crowds." |url=https://twitter.com/mapillary/status/535915175418036224 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230818131057/https://twitter.com/mapillary/status/535915175418036224 |archive-date=2023-08-18 |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=Twitter}} As of March 2015 it had 10 million photos,{{Cite web |last=Solem |first=Jan Erik |date=2015-03-23 |title=10M Geotagged Connected Photos |url=http://blog.mapillary.com/update/2015/03/23/10M.html |access-date=2015-07-21 |website=Mapillary}} and by June 11, 2015, Mapillary had over 20 million photos. As of November 15, 2016 Mapillary had over 100 million photos.{{Cite news |last=Solem |first=Jan Erik |date=2016-11-15 |title=100 Million Photos - Geotagged, Connected, and Available for All |url=https://blog.mapillary.com/update/2016/11/15/100-million-photos-geotagged-connected-and-available-for-all.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116154104/https://blog.mapillary.com/update/2016/11/15/100-million-photos-geotagged-connected-and-available-for-all.html |archive-date=2016-11-16 |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=Mapillary Blog}} In August 2023 Mapillary reached 2 billion photos.{{cite web |title=10 Years and 2 Billion Images |url=https://blog.mapillary.com/update/2024/01/12/Mapillary-10-Years-2-Billion-Images.html |website=blog.mapillary.com |access-date=19 October 2024 |date=12 January 2024}}

Mapillary images, millions

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In 2018, Mapillary acquired major image datasets from two USA state transportation departments: approximately 5 million images each contributed by the Vermont Department of Transportation{{Cite news|url=https://blog.mapillary.com/update/2018/03/28/vermont-opens-up-5-years-of-road-imagery.html|title=Vermont Opens Up 5 Years of Road Imagery for Improving Transportation Services|date=2018-03-28|work=The Mapillary Blog|access-date=2018-08-20|language=en}} and the Arizona Department of Transportation.{{Cite web|url=https://www.facebook.com/mapillary/posts/869374009913941|title=Arizona DOT uploads 4.7 million street-level images to Mapillary|website=www.facebook.com|language=en|access-date=2018-08-20}}

The images on Mapillary can be used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA).{{Cite web|title = Mapillary {{!}} Legal|url = http://www.mapillary.com/legal.html|access-date = 2015-07-21|first = Mapillary AB|last = Sweden}} There is special permission to derive data from the photos for contributing to OpenStreetMap{{cite web|title=Mapillary, OSM|url=http://www.mapillary.com/osm.html}} and Wikimedia Commons. The GPX tracks can be used without restriction, and derived data can be used provided it is ODbL.{{cite web |title=Right to Derive Data from Mapillary images |url=http://www.mapillary.com/osm.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140306131543/http://www.mapillary.com/osm.html |archive-date=2014-03-06}}

The license was changed on 29 April 2014 from CC BY-NC to CC BY-SA.{{Cite news|title = License Update: Now Creative Commons Share Alike|url = http://blog.mapillary.com/update/2014/04/29/mapillary-drops-nc.html|newspaper = The Mapillary Blog|access-date = 2015-07-21|date = 2014-04-29}}

Mobile apps (Android and iPhone) are proprietary software.

In May 2017, Mapillary released an open source subset of its very large and ever-expanding crowdsourced image dataset, the Mapillary Vistas Dataset of 25,000 street-level images, with pixel-wise annotation, to help train autonomous vehicle AI system algorithms. With data from 190 countries, they described it as "the world's largest, most diverse dataset for object recognition on street-level imagery" and offered it free for both academic and commercial researchers, but licensing is required for commercial product integration.{{cite web |title=Mapillary opens up 25k street-level images to train automotive AI systems |url=https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/03/mapillary-open-sources-25k-street-level-images-to-train-automotive-ai-systems/ |website=TechCrunch |date=3 May 2017 |access-date=26 July 2018}}

On November 28, 2017, Mapillary released a beta tool known as the Mapillary Tasker. Mapillary Tasker "enables a task creator to tell other contributors where help is needed and what needs to be done." On the other hand, contributors can sort through the various tasks listed on the beta and work on whatever projects are interesting and feasible.{{Cite news|url = https://blog.mapillary.com/update/2017/11/28/mapillary-tasker.html

|access-date = 2018-01-31|title = Introducing the Mapillary Tasker: Collaborate with Anyone on Mapillary| newspaper=The Mapillary Blog |date = 2017-11-28}}

The tasks can range from "completing coverage, making map edits based on images, and verifying object detection," and separated between capture, map edit, and verification tasks on the actual tool. As a side note, because the tool is currently in beta, users have to send requests to be reviewed by Mapillary administrators, rather than having the autonomy to post whatever task you want assistance with.

• Google Street View
• KartaView
• List of street view services
• OpenStreetMap
• Web mapping

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